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“You are my wife,” he said lowly. “Your obligation is to me.”
“I know what my obligations are,” Marion whispered fiercly, looking up into his face both with daring and a little frustration. “But they don’t include the necessity for you to know every part of my mind.”
Simon couldn’t help but reaching his other hand up to stroke her cheek.
“There was a time, not long ago, when I thought you might wish for me to know every part of you,” he whispered, letting his fingers trail softly down to the flush on her neck. He felt rising anger towards whoever had caused it, but also a more intense desire to kiss the skin. He caressed it softly, hearing her sharp intake of breath, her rapid breathing of desire. He felt her body stiffening, but he kept going, desperate to feel her soften against him as he used to.“When you wished me to know every secret of your body…“
He bent his head and set a kiss against her flushed throat, hearing her gasp perfectly. With a groan, Simon wrapped his arms around her, gathering her to him in a crush of fabric and flesh, inhaling the scents and smells of the city and wishing to erase each one with his own, to make her smell like him all over again.
“Marion,” he growled against her neck, her skin warm and wet with his kisses, “you’ve been pulling away from me. I don’t know why, I just want you back.”
“Oh, Simon, I - I—” she gasped, twisting her fingers in his hair almost painfully. Simon continued to kiss his way down her neck, encouraged by her body, if not by the hesitation in her words.
“Come back to me, Marion,” he murmured, his hands spanning her back easily and his lips pressed almost reverentially against the swell of her bosom, licking against the neckline of her gown. “Please, come back to me.”
“I - I cannot!”
In a sudden rush, Simon was pushed away and Marion’s warm flesh was ripped away from him as she ran to her bedchamber, just a flash of emerald silk and a sudden slammed door. Wearily, Simon stumbled forward, almost drunk with desire, and twisted the doorknob to the bedroom. It wouldn’t give. Marion had locked herself in. Through the wood, he thought he could hear the low sounds of tears.
“Marion,” he said, pressing his forehead against the door. “Marion, please talk to me. Please. I - I know something is troubling you and I just want to know what’s going on. Please talk to me.”
He listened carefully, waiting fruitlessly for the sound of a footstep or the squeak of bedsprings, but he heard nothing. His pleas went completely unanswered, and once again the heavy silence of his misery settled around him.
Simon sank down onto the floor, his back against the door and his head in his hands. He didn’t know what was going on, he didn’t know why the woman who clearly felt desire for him, who he had thought was his friend and confidante, was suddenly pushing him away. None of it made sense, and to Simon, it seemed like there was absolutely nothing he could possibly do about it.
Chapter Twenty
Marion barely slept that night. She twisted in her bedsheets, thrashing to and fro as she squirmed through dark and breathless dreams.
Simon’s lips against her throat, Simon’s intrusive, curious tongue probing the neckline of her gown, dampening the swell of her breast. Simon’s hands gripping the fabric of her gown, kneading the skin of her back and waist. Simon’s warm words, hot and whispered into her skin, into her very soul. “Please come back to me.” And she did, over and over again, surrendering to him completely, stripping herself bare with all the ease of a nymph, letting herself stand before him, naked and ready, as he took her, over and over, against the door, pressing her out of herself until they were one again, body and soul.
Then the dream would shift. As her husband claimed her dream-self once more, she noticed a man in the corner of their parlour.
Familiar dark eyes. Familiar fox-like smile. A dirty glance and a flash of yellow teeth. “My, my,” her father said, toying playfully with a silver penknife, “How far you have come up in the world, daughter.” In a flash, before she could think, her father had lunged and Simon was stumbling back from her, a large blood stain appearing in his chest, betrayal etched into his eyes.
“No!” Marion moaned, waking herself with her own words, finding herself alone in the darkness with just her terrible thoughts and the cold expanse of sheets beside her. She looked at the carriage clock on the nightstand. It was barely three o’clock in the morning.
Marion sighed, knowing she would never find comfort or peace tonight.This can’t go on,Marion thought to herself,I have to do something.The idea of keeping the secret of her father, of his threats, of the fact he knew where she lived and who she was married to, had become too big. She felt the pressure of it bearing down upon her as she laid in the comfort of her bed. Simon’s words the night before, his gentle yet passionate pleading that she tell him what was wrong, had struck her deeply, to the core of her being.
She had thought she had been careful, even clever, but apparently her husband was more attuned to her moods and feelings than she had ever anticipated. When she had heard the unhappiness in his voice, felt the desperation in his kisses, she had realised that despite her best efforts, Simon wasn’t coming out of this situation entirely unscathed. He was pained by her distance from him, that much was clear. Whether it was a deeper pain than the mere desperation of the body was something Marion couldn’t discern.
Did he want her back because he wanted her back in his bed, or because he felt more than he said? Did he miss her because he missed her kisses and touches, or because he missed her company? Marion couldn’t tell. Her head was entirely turbulent, unable to untangle the various threads that joined her to Simon, to the memory of her mother, to the household of Reading and to that dastardly figure of her father.
“Good morning, My Lady.” Loretta stepped in and opened the curtains in Marion’s bedroom. Marion sat up slowly, feeling sluggish in her body despite the endless swirling of her mind. At least she had finally come to some kind of conclusion. That, at least, was a relief.
“Do you have plans this morning, My Lady?” Loretta asked, holding out Marion’s dressing gown for her to pull on. “Shall I tell the cook to send your breakfast upstairs?”
Marion was unsure what she meant until she remembered that as she had come home from London yesterday, she had told Loretta she was unwell and would go to bed. Loretta was clearly assuming Marion still felt unwell.
“No, I shall go out to London again today,” Marion said, tying her dressing gown. She felt Loretta’s fingers stiffen on her shoulders.
“To London? Again, My Lady?”
Marion could feel Loretta’s anxiety radiating from her small body. Marion knew that yesterday had been trying for her lady’s maid. Marion had returned to the house, having cried out all of her fears and sadness on the lonely coach journey back from London.
She had arrived to find Loretta looking nearly as tremulous and teary as Marion felt. She was trembling like a leaf as she had whispered, “I am so glad you’re back safely, Milady. Milord has been looking for you, he - he is very angry.”
Marion anticipated that Loretta had been forced to endure some of Simon’s curtness, but after her interactions with Simon, his passionate speech and urgent gestures, she realised Simon might not have been able to hold back his anger when speaking to her lady’s maid. Loretta was not only afraid for her, but she was also a little afraid of incurring the wrath of her master again.
